Translating Food and Drink-Related Insults in Shakespeare’s (Henry IV) into Arabic

Essam Tahir Muhammed

doi:10.36586/jcl.2.2021.0.43.0064

Abstract

This study highlights the problems of translating Shakespeare's food and drink-related insults (henceforth FDRIs) in (Henry IV, Parts I&II) into Arabic. It adopts (Vinay & Darbelnet's:1950s) model, namely (Direct& Oblique) to highlight the applicability of the different methods and procedures made by the two selected translators (Mashati:1990 & Habeeb:1905) .The present study tries to answer the following questions:(i) To what extent the FDRIs in Henry IV might pose a translational problem for the selected translators to find suitable cultural equivalents for them? (ii) Why do the translators, in many cases, resort to a literal procedure which is almost not workable with such expressions. (iii)What is the main reason behind the high percentage of inappropriateness in translating FDRIs from English into Arabic? As for the main conclusions that the study has come up with, we can sum up them in the following points.(i) Most of the FDRIs are culturally bound expressions with cultural peculiarities making them very hard to be deciphered and translated even by experienced translators.(ii) Most of the FDRIs used by Shakespeare in his tragedy Henry IV, are very old and were his own inventions, a fact that makes them very difficult not only for the non-native speakers of English as the case with our translators (Mashati &Habeeb) but also for the native speakers. (iii) Finally, one can say that all the wrong and funny renditions were due to the wrong adopted procedures by (Mashati &Habeeb) , while the other successful renderings were as a result of their well-selected procedures that consider the cultural difference between the two languages.

Highlights

Translating Shakespearean food and drink-related insults could be a thorny task for Arabic translators due to many reasons
A frequency analysis based on Vinay and Darbelnet's direct and oblique model of translation was carried out to shed light on the most appropriate procedure that should be adopted in translating literary FDRIs from English into Arabic
Most of the FDRIs used by Shakespeare in his tragedy Henry IV, are very old and were his own inventions, a fact that makes them very difficult for the non-native speakers of English as the case with our translators (Mashati &Habeeb) and for the native speakers of it. 3

Summary

1.Introduction

Translating Shakespearean food and drink-related insults could be a thorny task for Arabic translators due to many reasons. FDRIs used by Shakespeare are almost of his invention that makes them very specific to English culture or more precisely to old English culture. The abundant use of figurative language, allegory, and wordplay by Shakespeare makes his works very difficult to translate and in many cases, the message conveyed by the Arabic translators suffers from a big loss of SLT beauty and intentionality as a result of the heavy dependence on the denotative (explicit) meaning of the words and the unintentional ignorance of the connotative (implicit meaning) which is intended. 2. To investigate the applicability and workability of Vinay and Darbelnet's methods and procedures in translating FDRIs in William Shakespeare's Henry IV. To assess the translation of the selected translators through their performance in translating FDRIs in William Shakespeare's Henry IV

2.Literature Review

Adaptation

Results and Discussion

Findings The present study has come up with the following findings

Conclusions